agree, BTW), how does a $12000 product enable that future?
>
To a certain extent, it helps to establish legitimacy among larger (read:
enterprise) organizations. From a business standpoint, MM has a unique
opportunity to present Flash-based RIAs to the enterprise and market its
potential as something other than the annoying ads a lot of corporate execs
associate with Flash. And along the way, they can generate some revenue to
make up for the R&D that went in to the Flex development process. I don't
know if I see the $12K price tag and the be all, end all of Flex pricing. In
the future, with the potential integration with CFMX and increased small
business awareness, there will probably be multiple pricing points which
will make Flex more affordable to a broader development base.
> Flex succeeds because it bring the positives of Flash of a content
delivery standpoint while freeing developers of the Flash IDE, which some
find very intimidating.
>
I think that Flex succeeds because it opens the Flash development process up
to a wider developer community who don't think in terms of timelines.
> In the next generation of Internet applications, it is going to be tough
to discern between a web app and a traditional desktop application. This is
the same motivation, I think, behind Microsoft's XAML, due out with
Longhorn. Given the delays in Longhorn, its deep Flash development base and
legions of ColdFusion developers, MM has roughly 1 year to grab market and
mindshare. While I'm sure the niche, enterprise market is lucrative, I
think there is enough enthusiasm among the poorer folk to have driven some
impressive sales volume in this product.
>
Why one year? Longhorn isn't slated until at least late 2006, and by some MS
blog accounts, perhaps 2007. That's two to three years. On top of that, you
can't assume that pople will race to adopt the Avalon platform if for no
other reason than users, especially corporate users, will not flock to
upgrade to the new release. At least with Flex, you get the ability to
develop applications that can be used by people now, let alone two to three
years from now.
> It just seems like is overlooking a opportunity to build a tremendous
technology advantage, catching Microsoft on its backfoot.
>
Again, I think it's a bit premature to determine what opportunity Macromedia
does and doesn't take advantage of. I mean, this product has been out for
one day!! To presume that what you see today is what you'll see in a year,
if not earlier, is probably a bit short-sighted. If cost is indeed a factor
for you and your clients, you can still use the developer version to get up
to speed until such time as the pricing becomes more affordable.
Flex may indeed have its issues that will take some growing pains to sort
out, but I don't think that pricing will be the make-or-break for the
product.
Regards,
Dave.
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